International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
Volume: 04 Issue: 12 | Dec-2017 www.irjet.net
Manufacturing Lead Time Reduction in Monoblock (SWJ) Pump
Industry
M.Parthiban 1a, M.Perumalsamy 1b, G.Aravinddinesh 2
1a Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Tamilnadu, India
1b,2 PG Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Tamilnadu, India
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Abstract - Manufacturing lead time is the time required to
produce product from its raw materials to final product.A
company has to fulfill its customer needs to sustain in this
competitive world. Lean has served the manufacturing sector
with speed and quality. This project aims at lead time
reduction in pump manufacturing company. Value Stream
Map(VSM) served as an initiative for identifying bottlenecks
process and waste in the manufacturing line; current state
map is drawn by the observation made on the shop floor. The
takt time is calculated for the demand to find out the
bottleneck operations. After identifying the bottleneck
operations line balancing is done. The Work In Process (WIP)
inventory is reduced by balancing the workstation. Future
state map is developed in the perspective of reduction of lead
time and to match the takt time with bottleneck process. After
line balancing implementation, the lead time for assembly of
the SWJ pump is reduced 32 percent and work in process
inventory is reduced 25 percent.
Key Words: Value Stream Mapping, Lead Time, Lean
Production Tools, Line Balancing, SWJ Pump, Takt time.
1. INTRODUCTION
When we look at the present scenario we learn due to
growing pressure and competition in the present changing
environment, companies are all out to enter into the
competitive world and give all advantages. This step is often
to find out a way to reduce lead time in a way to decrease
cost increase customer service lead time reduction which is
one of the most significant aspects of successful
manufacturing customers except quick and effective
response to their needs and expectations, and deliver
excellent quality on time thus lead time has become the
prime focus for companies.
1.1 Lean Manufacturing
Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy focusing
on the decrease or reduction of the seven wastes Over-
production, Waiting time, Transportation, Processing,
Inventory, Motion and Scrap in manufactured products. By
eliminating waste (Muda), quality is improved, work in
process inventory reduced, production time is reduced, and
the cost is reduced. Lean is all about getting the right quantity
while minimising waste and being flexible and open to
change. Lean manufacturing is a technique which focuses on
customer needs and fulfills it by delivering the requirements
at less time with high quality and cheaper cost through
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eliminating all kinds of hidden wastes that present in the
companies by continuous improvement. The implementation
of lean manufacturing techniques in a company will result in
higher productivity with less lead time. Therefore, lean
practices contribute substantially to plant operational
operation. Lean tools like Value stream mapping (VSM),
Kanban, cellular manufacturing, 5S, visual management, etc.,
are used in the implementation stage to reduce the wastes,
and non-value added activities in an organisation.
1.2 Types of Activities And Seven Wastes of
Production
The activities that comprise work can be grouped into three
categories.
1. Value-added work.
2. Non-value-added work.
3. Waste.
Customers will pay for value-added work, and for the non-
value-added work Customers will not pay for waste. Waste is
defined as any activity that consumes resource such as raw
material, machine, labour, etc., but does not create any value
for the customer.
Further, the wastes are classified into seven major types. The
seven types of wastes are
 Overproduction
Production of products which are not in need and also
production done earlier than the demand is overproduction.
When the overproduction is done there is a risk of producing
products of less quality and due to this, there are
possibilities of the goods being sold for a very low price and
sometimes risks of discarding them as scrap. Nevertheless,
in some cases when extra supplies of finished and semi-
finished goods are purposely maintained, even by lean
manufacturers.
 Transportation
Transporting raw materials or semi-finished products with
less or no value to the customer, from one workstation to
another is transportation. The purpose behind this is the
transportation of materials at different stages of production
is to use the output of one process is immediate as input for
next process. This transportation between process stages
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leads to prolonging production cycle times, inefficient use of
workforce and workspace which can be a source of
production stoppages.
 Waiting
When there is an inefficient production flow on the shop
floor or bottlenecks, waiting is considered as the idle time
for machines or workers.Waiting also includes minor delays
between processing of components. Waiting for results at a
significant cost as it increases labour wages.
 Motion
When workers adopt unnecessary physical movement or
when workers divert from actual processing work, is motion.
For example, walking around the factory in search of the
tool, or difficult physical movement, because of improper
design of the ergonomics, which causes the workers to slow
down in their work is motion.
 Over-processing
Doing work which is not necessary and expected by the
customers and their requirement, concerning product
quality or features, like polishing or applying finishing on
some areas of a product that is not seen or concerned by the
customer is known as over processing and this is considered
as waste.
 Inventory
When a large amount of raw materials which are not
necessary is stocked, and also work in progress and finished
products is inventory waste. More inventory leads to higher
inventory financing cost, higher holding costs, and defect
rates.
 Defects
Defects are errors in the production of goods, cost addition
to the sold goods, errors in paperwork, provision of wrong
information’s about products, late delivery, deviation from
the specification, use of excess materials or generating of
unnecessary scrap.
2. LITERATURE SURVEY
The concepts required for the project were gathered and
studied from various journals published in the field of lean
manufacturing techniques, for improving productivity and
lead time reduction
2.1 Value Stream Mapping
Visualization of tool oriented to the Toyota version of lean
manufacturing (Toyota Production System), is value stream
mapping this assists a manufacturing company to understand
or record current lead time, understand the inventory levels
and cycle times to determine the ratio of value added to the
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total lead time of the assembly time which is analysed. The
first action taken is to create a current state map to make a
representation of the production flow and learn the
companies existing cycle times, communication flow, and also
the capacity of the machine. By their step we get the required
information for the production of future state maps by
creating an image of an ideal product flow, this is not the end
of a complete study. The aim is to identify and remove the
waste. [1]
The value stream process will help to expose that a
substantial amount of non-value-added activities are present
in the manufacturing process. These activities consume
longer lead time without any adding value. Nonetheless, some
of these activities are necessary for the process, So the idea is
to maintain their impact. [2]
For the purpose of improving the flow of work in process
inventory and information, Value Stream Mapping a special
type of flowchart that uses symbols which is called the
"language of lean" is utilized. It provides optimal value to the
customer, through a complete value creation process with
minimum lead time. [3]
Recently it is learned various organizations and companies,
which mainly focus on improving the efficiency of the
operations by eliminating and reducing wastes have been
following lean manufacturing initiative, and they have been
discussing about the application of value stream mapping for
reducing of cycle time by the machining process. [4]
VSM is the starting point of the lean manufacturing tools, it
having the three stages there are a current stage, future stage,
and implementation. Rahani AR says current state VSM is
used to identify the problem and future stage VSM (Value
Stream mapping) eliminate NVA (Non-Value Added activity)
and necessary non value added activities for enhancing the
productivity then make the SOP in production line by
reducing lead time and improving method study. This tool is
reducing the bottleneck for making continuous flow. [5]
2.2 Work Study
Work study is a time and method study for examining human
working, all its context and which lead to a systematic
investigation of all the factors which affect the efficiency of
the situation that is reviewed to make improvements the look
deals with an introduction to work-study by international
labour office. [6]
The author describes the procedure to do work study
including the method study and work measurement. It also
gives the standards to follow during the operations in the
manufacturing industry. It helps to improve the quality. The
efficient use of time study and line balancing in the industry is
correctly analysed by Johan Oscar Ong, in his paper he
provided a case study of a doll manufacturer focusing on
productivity increase through time study, redesign of work
arrangement and line balancing. [7]
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2.3 Line Balancing
Line balancing is very vital in most of the production or
assembly lines, through bottleneck point off often happens.
As a result of this, there are chances for heavy wastage. There
are numerous methods to balance the line and also eliminates
wastes. The quality of the electronics component assembly
line was improved in regards with line balancing index,
overall labour effectiveness, productivity and also the
elimination of wastes in spite of human resources decrease,
could meet the customer demand. With simple lean tools,
wastes could be eliminated. In a principle method, but it
would bring essential benefits. [8]
Line balancing is a very vital tool which helps to improve the
throughput of the assembly line which reducing non-value-
added activities. Line balancing is the problem of assigning a
task to workstation along a production line, in a way the
assignment of optimum. This balancing method is a very vital,
in making the production flow smoother compared to the
previous layout. Breaking down the operation into sequential
and logic order is the first step in Line balancing the purpose
of break down is to understand and implement the sequential
of product processing step in a better way. [9]
Eryuruk et al. gave an explanation that problem of multi-
model assembly line balancing in a clothing company for two
models gave information about definitions and solution
methods related to assembly line balancing. [10]
There are five heuristic methods of line balancing is
available. In this ranked position weighted method is useful
when the smaller amount data is available. It is explained
that with the help of ranked position weighted method, we
can find out the way to synchronize the workstations for the
workflow and sequencing. This help to minimize the
bottleneck operation in assembly line has been determined,
based on ranked position weighted method. [11]
3. OBJECTIVES
The problem identified in the company is during the
seasonal time the Pump has more demand than the regular
time. Demand is not met in the seasonal time due to
increased lead time due to nonvalue-added activities such as
Work In Process (WIP) inventory, Defects. To overcome the
above mention problem, project objectives are framed.The
objective of our project is to demonstrate systematically how
lean manufacturing tools used appropriately so that industry
can reduce the lead time through the elimination of the seven
kinds of wastage.
 To analyse the manufacturing process.
 To study the process and identify the bottlenecks.
 To reduce the cycle time involved in the
manufacturing of pumps.
 To satisfy the customer requirements.
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4. METHODOLOGY
The methodology of the project is formulated based on the
objectives identified. First, in this project, the assembly
sequence, assembly stations involved and the assembly
activities are identified. A time study is carried out. A current
state value stream mapping (VSM) is charted to record
material, process flow, and information flow and to identify
the wastes. The non-value-added activities are also identified
using the VSM. The improvement of the assembly process is
executed by balancing the assembly line based on the TAKT
time which reduces non-productive time and idle time. The
line was balanced using the ranked positional weighted
method. The sequence of the activities carried in this project
work is shown as a flowchart in Fig 1.
Problem Identification
Literature Review
Work Study
Current State VSM
Line Balancing
Implementation
Future State VSM
Conclusion
Fig -1: Methodology Flowchart
4.1 Product Description
The Product taken for this project is Shallow Well Jet Pump
(Centrifugal self-Priming) Called SWJ which is shown in Fig 2.
The manufacturer of Shallow Well Jet Pump company is
located in Coimbatore. Shallow Well Jet pumps are used in
houses for lifting water from sump to over-head tank. SWJ
Pumps are highly preferred because of its low cost, high head
range and easy installation.
Fig -2: Shallow Well Jet Pump
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4.2 Process Flow 5. VALUE STREAM MAPPING

There are totally seven stages in the main assembly line It is learned that in lean manufacturing value stream
including testing process, and then the pump is packing and mapping is the most powerful tool. In this VSM is a tool
dispatching. The stator and rotor are brought to the main commonly used in lean continuous improvement to help to
assembly line, and the assembly is carried over it. The pump understand the current state of any process and also
components are assembled with another station and sent to improve the flow of material and information among
the final assembly station. The stator and motor body are organizations or departments. It captures and presents the
assembled in the subassembly section (machining section), whole process from inception to completion, by a method
and it is assembled to the rotor in the main assembly section. which is easy to understand by those working on the
The first process in main assembly section is motor assembly. process. It captures the current issues and gives a realistic
The detailed SWJ Pump assembly process flowchart is as picture. The Value stream mapping starts with the creation
shown in fig 3. of the current state map of the process. The map is drawn
using standard icons which represent different steps in
process, inventory, production, transfer, operators, and
Motor Test and Pump
assembly cooling fan component
others. The entire process is mapped from raw material
assembly assembly receipt on the left-hand side to customer shipment on the
right-hand side. The final step is to add lines to the bottom of
the map that distinguishes from value added to non-value
added activity. Value added is anything in the process for
Flange Flow Final which the customer is willing to pay for. Non-value added
Packing assembly rate assem activity is a waste. For this particular project, the current
testing - bly state and future state value stream mapping have been done
using I– GRAFX 2015 software.
Fig -3: SWJ Pump Assembly process flow chart
5.1 Current State Value Stream Mapping
4.3 Cycle Time Study
The current state VSM is plotted with the help of shop floor
A Cycle time study is a structured process of directly activities like the cycle time, number of operators, material
observing and measuring human work to establish the time flow, information flow and customer requirements. The
required for completion of that work. The recorded cycle transportation information for supplier and customer is
times for individual operations shows how well the current represented as external shipment icons. The inventories are
operation was carried out in relation to the takt time. Time noted with the inventory triangles between two processes.
study for the manufacturing process of SWJ pump was done The process data are entered in the respected process data
by Stopwatch and the standard time for the various process boxes. The information flow (manual or electronic) in the
are listed in Table 1.Stopwatch time study was conducted in shop floor and the management is plotted according to the
10 trials with allowance 15% was considered for a standard data. The timeline shows the value added and non-value
time as suggested by ILO (International Labour Organization) added activities data. The value-added activity line always
and performance rating of all the operators is considered as has the cycle time which specified in the process data with
100 percent. the unit seconds for each process. The non-value added
activity line will always have inventory in the unit of
Table -1: Time Study of Assembly Process minutes. The takt time is calculated to know the status of
delivery.
Average Standard
S. No Process Cycle Time Time 5.1.1 Calculation of Takt Time
(sec) (sec)
Customer’s requirements
1 Motor assembly 170 196 Number of pumps required: 7500 pumps/month
Test and cooling fan Delivery schedule: Monthly shipment
2 92 106 Shop floor details
assembly
Working hours per shift : 8 hours
Pump component Break minutes per shift : 80 minutes
3 40 46
assembly Duration Per shift = 8 x 60 = 480 minutes
4 Final assembly 44 51 Break and lunch duration = 80 minutes/shift
5 Flow rate testing 85 98 Total available time/shift = 400 minutes
No of working days = 28 days
6 Flange assembly 61 70 No of shifts per day = 2 shifts (2 x 400 = 800 minutes)
7 Packing 120 138 Total available time/month = 800 x 28 = 22400 minutes
Demand/month = 7500 units

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The ranked position weighted method solution depicts a

Takt time =
= cycle time and calculate the workstations required for
= 2.98
Takt time = 2.98 minutes or 179 seconds
Using the data collected on the shop floor, current state value
stream map is drawn as shown in Fig 6. The current state
value stream map has been drawn for pump assembly
process. The value ratio is 1.28 percent.The lead time of the
assembly process is 549 minutes.The work in process
inventory time is 460 minutes and value-added time for the
product is only 703 seconds. In the current assembly process
consists of 7 workstations, during the assembly process
batch process is followed, so that work in process inventory
created. From the current value stream mapping, the first
workstation takes more time then the takt time. The batch
size for the assembly is huge on the current state value
stream map. Large batch size utilises more workspace and
also results in large work-in-process inventories.
6. LINE BALANCING
After calculating the takt time for the demand, the precedence
constraints are noted. The Task relationship and order of
precedence is listed in Table 2.
Table -2: Elemental Task Table
Task Time
Process Precedence
Number (sec)
1 Motor assembly - 196
2 Testing and cooling 1 106
fan assembly
better efficient way to assign the work elements to the station
than any other methods. In this method, we can assign the
production line or vice versa. We note that this cannot be
done in any other method of line balancing so, in the existing
problem of pump assembly line RPW method is used.
The following are the steps taken in the Ranked position
weighted method.
Step 1: Draw the precedence diagram of any process.
Step 2: For each work element, determine the positional
weight. It is the total time on the longest path from the
beginning of the operation to the last operation of the
network.
Step 3: Rank the work elements in descending order of
ranked positional weight (R.P.W).
Step 4: Assign the work element to a station. Choose the
highest RPW element. Then, select the next one. Continue
until cycle time is not violated. Follow the precedence
constraints also.
Step 5: Repeat step 4 till all operations are allotted to one
station.
6.1 Before Line Balancing Implementation
The Present scenario of the assembly line of the SWJ pump is
shown in Fig 5. The Figure is clear that motor assembly
operation is the bottleneck operation. This indicates that the
line is not balanced.
Work Balancing - Timeline1
Takt Time 179 s.

3 Pump component 2 46
assembly
4 Final assembly 2,3 51
196 s. 106 s. 46 s. 50.6 s. 97.5 s. 70 s. 138 s.
5 Flow rate testing 4 98
L/T = 0 seconds
6 Flange assembly 5 70 Fig -5: Work balance of assembly line before lineVA/T
balancing
= 0 seconds

7 Packing 6 138
The line balancing techniques are used to solve the
bottleneck operation. This technique is a very effective tool
Precedence diagram is drawn from the information for the improvement of throughput of the assembly line.
provided in the elemental task table given above represented which reducing the manpower requirements and costs.
in fig 4. Assembly line balancing, or simply Line Balancing (LB), is
the problem of assigning operation to workstation along
with an assembly line, in such way that the assignment is
optimal. From the Fig 5., it is clear that the unbalanced
assembly line causes Over-production at one end and
Waiting at the other end. Over-Production is a major waste
that causes six other consecutive wastes. Due to the
overproduction work in process inventory increased. This is
the reason for the importance of Line balancing. Ideal
Fig -4: Precedence diagram

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balanced assembly line which reduces overburden, line, with the aim of matching the individual workstation
variations in work and minimises seven types of wastes. As a cycle time with the takt time.
part of this project, line balancing is done on this assembly

Fig -6: Current state VSM for assembly proces

Fig -7: Future state value stream mapping

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6.2 After Line Balancing Implementation

In this implementation, the number of workstations are

decided and proper layout is proposed, based on RPW
method.The RPW results show that seven workstations
balanced into five workstations the motor assembly is
considered as one workstation, testing cooling fan assembly
and pump component assembly combined with one
workstation. Flow rate testing and flange assembly stations
are combined into one station. The balanced workstation as
shown in Fig 8. After line balancing the efficiency of the line
is increased to 72 % as shown in Fig 8.
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Fig -8: Line balancing of the workstations
7. FUTURE STATE VALUE STREAM MAPPING
Fig -9: Improvement in LT and WIP inventory
Juan C. Tinoco, “Implementation of Lean
Manufacturing,” p. 65, 2004.
M. Rother and J. Shook, “Learning to See: Value
Stream Mapping to Create Value and Eliminate
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M. A. Samad, M. SaifulAlam, and NishatTusnim,
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Venkataraman, K.Ramnath, Vijaya, B. K. Muthu, and
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A. R. Rahani and M. Al-Ashraf, “Production flow
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The future state value stream mapping is decided and drawn
with the suggested lean tools and improvements. The
implementation will be carried out with future state value
stream map in the assembly process of Shallow well jet
pump. After the successful implementation the non-value-
added activities, which are identified from the current state
value stream map is, as shown in fig 7.
8. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
After studying and analysing the problems present in the
SWJ pump assembly line improvements were made. Lead
time was reduced by identifying and eliminating work in
process inventory. For improvement activity
implementation it is necessary to collect the information
about the value added and non-value added activity time of
the particular process. From current state value stream
mapping, it is identified the value added, and the non-value
added activity time of each process. After line balancing
implementation, the lead time for assembly of the SWJ pump
is reduced from 549 minutes to 369 minutes and work in
process inventory is reduced from 240 to180.The potential
savings is 180 minutes.The improvement of the lead time
and work in process inventory is indicated in fig 9.
[6] International Labour Office and G. Kanawaty,
Introduction to Work Study. 1992.
[7] P. Vidyut and C. Assistant, “An Effort To Apply Work
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4050–4058, 2007.
[8] N. T. Lam, L. M. Toi, V. T. T. Tuyen, and D. N. Hien,
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[9] Morshed, N. Palash, and K. Saifujjaman, “Assembly
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